Automate dialling extensions on your iPhone

If you work in a bureaucratic enivronment, there’s probably a good chance that you have to deal with telephone extensions on a daily basis. The problem with dialling extensions is that you usually have to wait for the prompt, bring your phone down to eye level, and then put the phone back to your ear when you’re done.

It turns out that you can include extensions in your contact information so that you can avoid the whole process.

You can insert a pause, represented by a comma, and then insert the the extension you want to dial.

Here’s how you do it:

Create or edit a contact,

Tap on the number you want to edit

Put in the phone number

Hit the “+*#” button

Now hit the pause button

Enter the number of the extension you want

Click Done.

The awesome thing about this little trick is that you can use the “pause” button to navigate automated menus. For instance, if you’re trying to get to the billing department of your cell phone carrier, you can enter the proper key combination to get transferred. For the Rogers network, it would be “611, 2, 1” That places me on the line with the billing department.